The Vampire Diaries fans everywhere are probably still recovering from last night’s emotional beating. Thankfully, the woman responsible for your heartache didn’t shy away from explaining herself in interviews and is providing answers to the questions that are undoubtedly floating around in thousands of fans heads.

The show’s executive producer Julie Plec spoke with TV Line about everything from why this was Elena’s perfect ending, what’s next for Damon and his heart, what’s ahead for Steroline and what fans can expect from the show in its seventh season.

One big question fans are probably pondering is how the powers that be knew that this ending was the ending that Elena deserved. “We knew we didn’t want to kill Elena because we do want her to come back one day, maybe in the series finale,” said Plec. “… we didn’t want her to walk off into the sunset and get a job somewhere because that felt fake. We thought, “What could she do that proves to her friends and to the viewers who she is as a person?” And of course she would make a sacrifice so her best friend could live out the rest of her life. We thought it was fitting that, at the end of the day, after all these sacrifices made on her behalf, she takes the bullet for her friend and goes out Sleeping Beauty-style.”

Now that Damon has lost his love (for the next 60 years), it sounds like he’ll be taking lots of Damon-time, so fans can relax about any sort of Elena replacement popping up in the near future. “It would feel false for him to meet someone else and have sparks and fall in love. The viewers also wouldn’t embrace it; any girl who comes close to Damon gets clawed at with their opinions, so it’s not something we’re going to jump into as writers right away. He’s got to be with himself for a bit, and his love story will be based back on Stefan,” Plec told the site.

Steroline fans got a little bit of payoff last night, thanks to Stefan finally admitting he loves Caroline and although she didn’t reciprocate the feelings, Steroline fans shouldn’t be too upset…it was with good reason. “We always thought it was more natural for Caroline to deal with the grief she’s feeling and not think that her relationship with Stefan is just a Band-Aid to cover up these tragic feelings she’s been enduring. She wants to come at it from a cleaner place, and she mentioned to him in the last episode that she’s a control freak. She’s still coping after her mother’s death and her humanity being off; she’s not feeling like herself.” So what’s ahead for the pair? “In Season 7, she’s going to try and figure out if she and Stefan can actually do this.”

The brief flash-forward at the end of last night’s episode foreshadowed a bleak(er?) future for Mystic Falls, and it sounds like Lily could be part of it. “This will be the nightmare of Season 7,” said Plec of Lily’s reunion with her family. “It’s going to be the Salvatore brothers vs. the Salvatore mom and her adopted family of heretics, who are known to be sociopaths who have killed thousands of people.”

See what else Plec revealed about the emotional season finale and what’s ahead in season 7 over at TV Line.

Jasmine is the Associate Editor/Reporter for FanBolt. She’s been obsessed with pop culture and entertainment news since the olden days of MTV’s ‘TRL’ and graduated in 2009 with her BA in Journalism. She’s a huge horror and sci-fi/fantasy fan and her favorite shows include: American Horror Story, Game of Thrones, Pretty Little Liars, Doctor Who, Bates Motel, Once Upon A Time and Scandal, to name a few.